June 3, 2013

We have continued to study habitats. We made minibooks about the coral reef habitat.

This is a diorama we made about a pond habitat in all four seasons.

We learned that many animals use their coloring or pattern to hide from or confuse predators. We made this mural where the animals blend into their savannah surroundings.

We learned that fables are stories with animal characters that act human. Fables always have a lesson at the end. After reading the fable Henny Penny, we made a map of all the locations we read about.

In math we have been learning that you can describe the chance of something happening. This is called probability. We each got a cup of jelly beans and graphed the number of beans we had of each color. Then we described the probability of pulling out a bean of a specific color. We also learned that probability is involved in games that have dice and spinners.

April 14, 2013

Our current writing unit is about report writing. During the first week of the unit we wrote about our school. We first thought of three questions someone might be wondering about our school. We used these questions as heading to organize our writing. Then we answered the questions and created a table of contents for our work.

We recently studied gravity. Everyone had a basic understanding of what gravity is but we learned many new and interesting facts about it as well.

We've been studying nonfiction text. We learned that nonfiction authors use five text structures to write about topics. As readers we need to recognize these text structures so we know what to expect and what to look for while we're reading. The signal words on the right side of the chart help us to identify text structures.

In math we are studying geometry. We learned about many characteristics of 2D shapes and how these characteristics help us name and classify the shapes.

We learned how to identify parallel lines and marked the sets of parallel lines we found in shapes. Some shapes have no sets of parallel lines.

We built several 3D shapes, then practiced counting their faces, edges, and vertices.

March 19, 2013

Please visit my new blog,The Classroom Key, for more great anchor charts, ideas, and freebies!
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We have been learning about the 12 math problem solving situations. These are the take apart/ put together problem situations. The new Common Core Standards state that we need to be able to solve problems with the unknown value in all positions of the equation. We're getting good at it!

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The last three are the compare situations. After conceptualizing these situations with smaller numbers, we were able to solve similar problems with bigger numbers.

This quarter in math we have really dug into measurement. We read the book Twelve Snails to One Lizard by Susan Hightower. In that story, animals are related to units of measurement. We frequently refer back to these animals to remember that there are 12 inches in a foot and 3 feet in a yard.

In reading we have been thinking about the author's purpose for writing. We know that not all text is written the same way and we will understand more of what we read if we know what to look for. We have looked at examples of persuasive text to get ideas for our own persuasive writing. Our understandings about reading and writing go hand-in-hand!

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In social studies we are studying the features of maps. We learned about how to use compass roses and designed our own out of interesting magazine pages.

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In art we sculpted numbers in the style of Robert Indiana. We practiced rearranging them to change their place value and used them to create equations.

March 2, 2013

We have enjoyed learning about measurement in math. This week we had a jumping contest and measured our jump distances using meters and centimeters.

We recently started a new unit in social studies about maps. We have learned that maps show things from a "birds-eye" view. We will also be learning to use coordinates, cardinal directions, legends/keys, and map scales.

We are learning to write persuasive pieces. We know that two places persuasive writing can be found is in opinion articles in the newspaper or in brochures that try to convince people to visit a place. We have gotten the chance to publish our own work in the style of an article and a brochure.

In math we've been using a new tool called a rekenrek (a Dutch invention). These are simple ones made out of cereal boxes, beads, and pipe stem cleaners. Rekenrek's can be used in a variety of ways but we've been using them to understand problems involving comparison. The top rekenrek is in "start position." The one on the bottom is showing the problem:

Dan had 4 books. Jessie had 4 more books than Dan. How many books does Jessie have?
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Dan had 4 books. Jessie had 8 books. How many more books did Jessie have?

These Rekenreks can only model problems with small numbers, but they have helped us build a foundation for solving similar problems with bigger numbers.

We are learning that prefixes are word chunks that change the meaning of a word. Recognizing these chunks helps us sound out long words and helps us know what they mean.

February 19, 2013

In 2nd grade we learn about 5 of the 8 parts of speech. We've already worked on nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. This week we learned about our last one, adverbs. They add information about a verb.

We already knew that sentences needed a capital letter and an end mark. We recently learned that all complete sentences also need a naming part (the subject) and a telling part (the predicate).

We recently started a unit about persuasive writing. Each week we go through these steps in the writing process.

We learned that biographies are books about people's lives. After reading a biography about the singer, Marian Anderson, we used what we learend to desgin a new outfit for her. I was amazed with the students' creativity!

We had a great time decorating bags and exchanging cards and treats on Valentine's Day.